Monday, November 19, 2018

Binance transfers $600 million for just $7

Crypto exchange Binance has been moving bitcoin funds to cold storage the past couple of days, and, of course, such large transfers don’t go unnoticed.

Two transactions destined for Binance’s cold wallet come to the fore and demonstrate both the power and irony of the blockchain. A transaction in block 550211 was a transfer of just over $1 million. For this transaction, Binance paid just over $8 in fees. The “high” amount of the fee is probably a matter of convenience, as the transaction was not particularly large at just 1550 bytes.

The other transaction, first flagged by Antoine Le Calvez of CoinMetrics.io, is more notable for its size — $600 million at the time it was sent, making it the largest unspent transaction output existing today — but also illustrates the irony of Bitcoin transactions, whose fees are not based on the amount transacted but instead the amount of computer resources required to store the information. This second transaction, made in block 550155 several hours earlier, comprised 5981 bytes yet cost the giant exchange just over $7.

A cold storage wallet is one that is not connected to the blockchain via the internet. With appropriate security hygiene, it can amount to having direct access to your personal fortune with no middlemen. similar transaction hypothetically in Paypal would have costed atleast $17 million dollars